Chew the Fat
June 20th, 2007 by 
drunkentune
I’m no theologian, so I only understand (and read) a bit of theology. What I see is that many theologians take as a premise the existence of not just a god, but the god of their birth or culture: prima facie belief.
Those theologians that have attempted to demonstrate the existence of the supernatural — of a god — of the god — have provided far more interesting questions than (and I hate to be so harsh about it), those that pontificate not just on how many angels may dance on the head of a pin, but those who try to discover if angels engage in bowel movementsAn aside: Of course, if ethics that stem from belief in the supernatural work for you, that’s wonderful. Perhaps, if you believed otherwise, you would maim, steal, rape and murder others; thus your belief is a necessary thing, albeit unjustified in my eyes.
But I don’t think that’s true. I hope you can be just as ethical without a system of ethics that relies on, what seems to many nonbelievers, as magic beans.. (Of course, I’m speaking of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica.)
If you’d like to work through, as one would with a scientific hypothesis, several of the classic ‘proofs’ of the existence of (1) the supernatural, (2) a deistic god, (3) a theistic god, let’s talk it outAnother aside: Of course, if any of these proofs should fail, that does not mean that the god you believe in does not exist. And if your proof should succeed some serious scrutiny from doubters, then it is a powerful argument. Either way, believers in this situation will not be put on the spot. If an argument doesn’t work, it doesn’t work; nothing more.
But if an argument works….
Posted in belief, epistemology, for fun | 
June 20th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I *just* discovered the fact that mouse-hovering over certain URL’s (as exemplified by your “talk it out” link at the end) yields pop-up’s with additional comments! Oddly, the top of the aside bubble doesn’t align with the rest of the bubble in Firefox… How long have you been using this trick?
June 20th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I’ve been working on the code for some time. It’s only on ‘links’ that are not underlined to differentiate them between links to information outside of Philaletheia. Unfortunately, I’m just no good at fixing it.
Does it work?
June 20th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Hmmm, still funky. Also, it doesn’t seem to be isolated to Firefox. Latest version of IE6 has the same issue too.
Does it work for you, and if so, what browser are you using?
June 20th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
No, it doesn’t work for me either. I use both the latest versions of Safari and Firefox. It’s got to be something with the code.
It isn’t too distracting, is it?
June 20th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Nah, it’s not a big deal.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Perhaps it would be more interesting to speculate on whether drunkentune exists. After all, these posts could be a random natural phenomenon, based on some fluctuations of electromagnetic energy that eventually find their way to my computer screen. Doubtful there is really an intelligent being attempting to communicate with me
June 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Ed,
I certainly can’t explain how those words were formed; it stands to reason that it’s all a computer simulation cooked up by an evil programmer.
June 20th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Great link! That explains it to me. No wonder I’ve always felt a connection to the emergency medical hologram (EMH) on Star Trek.
It also explains how an otherwise orderly computer simulation might have occasional anomalous events, like resurrections, miraculous healings, a virgin birth, walking on water, spontaneous generation of fish/loaves of bread, and 70000 Portugeuse witnessing rapid drying and the sun dancing in the sky as predicted by some grade school kids who saw said virgin.
However, the programmer is not evil
June 20th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Ed,
The programmer set in motion mudslides, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, volcanoes, lightning bolts, viruses, disfiguring diseases, parasites, leeches and flies.
QED: the programmer is evil.
June 20th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
DT,
The programmer set in motion love, music, art, reason, compassion, relationship, and beauty. He also had his own Son die to allow for a process of reconciliation and ultimate perfection. For me, I’ll risk a few flies in the ointment
June 20th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Ed,
Are you sure you’re using the right user’s manual? Couldn’t it be an artifact of the program, and not a How-To guide? There’s plenty of other faux-How-To’s out there; why is this one different?
I mean, why ought the programmer kill his son (which wouldn’t mean much to me; after all, it’s a computer simulation, so the programmer created a NPC and then removed him) to debug a system when all it needs is an afternoon of code checking to get rit of snake.app and apple.dmg? (Is the analogy wearing thin yet?) Besides, the program may have been designed by more than one programmer — perhaps even humans, or a highly advanced lifeform, or even… evil machines.
June 21st, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Here is a link that will help our atheist commentors understand the proof: http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/ . It doesn’t differentiate a deistic God from a theistic one. But the miracles help us understand fully it is the latter. By the way, what is your naturalistic explanation for the phenomena at Fatima on October 13, 1917? Have you decided your UFO-abduction friend could be right?
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:06 am
Ed,
I.
I have yet to hear how the supernatural answers the phenomena of Fatima. It’s not like someone grew an arm back; is there something super-natural about drying clothes?
Furthermore, before you send any more information on Lourdes, NDE’s, or Fatima, I wish to know if you have a theory on how the supernatural world interacts with the natural world.
II.
Lastly, the website you linked to (although thoughtful on your part) was a bit tiresome. For instance, if we go here, we read: ‘You say that rape IS wrong because you know that it IS wrong and not just against your personal preference.’
Slavery is wrong. The Bible says slavery is good (see Leviticus 25:44-46, Exodus 21:2-6, Exodus 21:7-11, Exodus 21:20-21, Ephesians 6:5, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, and Luke 12:47-48 if you don’t believe me). QED: the Bible isn’t authoritative on morality (it also isn’t up to task on mathematics or science). Why should I trust the Bible if it preaches immorality? Why should I trust the Bible if it has scientific errors like Gen. 30:39? If all the information we have on the Christian god stems from the Bible and it cannot be trusted to be scientifically accurate or even moral…
It also tried to sneak in the ontological argument at the end — an argument I think is frivolous, if not outright stupid-in-the-head bad.
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:55 pm
It seems that the main point of Lourdes, Fatima, and other miracles is not how but who. When God wills, it happens. That is not so much a theory as a description of what is observed. How does the supernatural interact with the material/natural world? In creation, in composition, and in restoration as Col 1:15-20 states. So how did the sun dance? God willed that it dance. So how did the clothes and ground dry so fast? God willed that they dry. So how did the school kids know this would happen that day? God told them. Do you have a better explanation?
Since you’ve admitted you are not a theologian, ought I disregard your interpretations of the bible’s message on slavery? It seems there have been better theologians than you who’ve twisted the words to justify slavery, but the best theologians have properly interpreted it as anti-slavery. Have you ever wondered why the Roman Empire had slavery, but after its fall in the west and adoption of Christianity as state religion in the east, slavery was no longer the economic model?
June 22nd, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Ed,
I.
So, God did it, I believe it, that settles it works for you; OK by me. I don’t have a problem with that. But don’t you ever wonder how these miracles — if they did occur — happened?
But you must understand that your argument does not work for nonbelievers.
II.
I’ll put this as diplomatically as possible: If you can understand these symbols called ‘letters’, how they form ‘words’, and how ‘words’ interact with each other to form ’sentences’, it doesn’t take a theologian to understand what these mean:
III.
(1) Let us presuppose: The Christian god exists and relates to humanity through the Old and New Testaments.
(1.1) If the Christian god exists, it is by definition moral, and would seek to communicate what is moral effectively.
(1.2) Following 1.1, if the Christian god exists, it would convey what it considers to be moral through the New and Old Testaments.
(2) Let us presuppose: Slavery is immoral.
(3) Both the New and Old Testaments condone slavery.
(4) Following 2 & 3, the Christian Bible has an immoral message.
(5) Due to a contradiction between 1.2 & 4, either 2 is wrong (slavery is not immoral) or 1 is wrong. The Christian god would not endorse a document that furthered immorality.
I’m willing to drop this if instead we talked a bit on how the supernatural world could interact with the natural world. That’s what interests me, not arguments for or against the existence of the Christian god with the use of the Bible. I do so partly out of respect to soulster, partly out of a desire to keep decorum here, and partly because I don’t enjoy it in the least.
June 22nd, 2007 at 9:50 pm
From answers.com:
“…The miraculous occurrences at Fatima on October 13, 1917, have also been evaluated in light of the post-World War II UFO phenomenon, and many ufologists view it as a classic appearance of a UFO. They note that the “sun” that danced in the sky at Fatima bears a remarkable likeness to UFOs. The white substance that fell resembles what has come to be known as angel’s hair, a phenomenon accompanying a number of UFO reports. Roman Catholic authors, more interested in the religious and miraculous aspects of Fatima, have as a whole refrained from even commenting on such speculations.
While a matter of devotion to Catholics, it remains an enigmatic occurrence to non-Catholics.”
And in today’s Drudge report this article:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23401615-details/‘Mile-wide+UFO’+spotted+by+British+airline+pilot/article.do
Whatever the cause I’d like to see something like this just once.
June 22nd, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Infidel,
I’d believe in UFOs — a possible natural occurence — over the existence of the supernatural any day. After all, a UFO is not an alien craft; it’s just unexplained. Aliens visiting Earth are vanishingly unlikely, so I’ll still stick with hallucinations.
June 22nd, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Infidel: How do you suppose those 3 Portugeuse kids knew there would be a UFO sighting that day? Or do you prefer to ignore the evidence? Perhaps you ought not consider it unless it is your own personal experience of the supernatural. So, if someone else, or thousands of someone elses, report a likely supernatural experience, you can pretend it didn’t happen. Actually, to me, if I alone saw the sun dancing in the sky personally, and no one else saw it, I’d be suspicious that I was the one hallucinating. I wouldn’t want to miss early signs of a brain tumor, or something, you know.
DT, Re III. I think your point 1.1 is the issue, especially the word “effectively”. Human beings aren’t very receptive to divine messages, in case you haven’t noticed. Pulling verses out of context can lead to awfully bad theology. The revelation has had to interact with people and societies over time, so it must be understood in its wholeness and context. Here is some background on one denomination’s struggle to balance the slavery/morality issue over time: http://www.thinking-catholic-strategic-center.com/slavery.html .
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:00 am
Ed,
Hopefully both you and I would agree that if the ten commandments had an extra commandment, say… DO NOT HAVE SLAVES; NO ONE MAY OWN ANOTHER PERSON, that would be clear.
No?
Let’s make this clear: what do you take umbrage with in 1.1? ‘If the Christian god exists, it is by definition moral, and would seek to communicate what is moral effectively.’
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:55 am
The Mosaic law permitted slaves to be held for up to seven years, then only longer if the slave agreed. It was an accommodation to the prevailing socioeconomic conditions of the time, that was actually a move in the direction of better conditions. That is also the point of the New Testament passages, especially the book of Philemon, that slave or free, in God’s view all are equal. Are you aware of any atheistic teacher prior to 100 AD who proclaimed slavery immoral? If there was an eleventh commandment as you recommend, we may never have heard of the first ten, since this was such a part of the conditions of the time.
So, my point about “effectively”, is that it seems that the revelation was not just written for me and my modern contemporaries. Guys like David ben Jesse of Bethlehem and Canute the Dane have been called in their day to listen, and may not have done so if you’d written it. And if they and others like them had not, we’d be unlikely to have had the revelation preserved to this day. You don’t give a complex modern formulation to a near-savage and expect him to relate. The remarkable thing is that the writing given to the near-savage still seems to hold great appeal to the populace. So, perhaps, given the method of revelation, this is the most effective way to communicate.
June 23rd, 2007 at 1:33 am
So there goes God, subject to the prevailing social and cultural whims. My, how powerful a god is he.
You need to take your god — and all its implications — seriously.
The only ‘atheists’ before 100 ADE I can think of are all Ancent Greeks: Socrates, Epicurus, Protagoras and Democritus. I think Confucius, Lao-Tzu and Gautama Satva (the Buddha) may be considered ‘atheists’ as well. If so, I know of at least one. And if an atheist could come to the correct moral answer at the time the Bible was written…
Besides, you’re dragging a red herring behind you: (1) slavery is immoral and (2) the Old and New Testaments condone slavery. Who cares what ancient philosophers thought about slavery? It’s irreverent. If the word of God is now comparable to fallible men carte blanche, my job has been done for me.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:30 am
Actually, this discussion is going the way of Foxtrot’s cartoon strip, “Go deep”. My position is basically that God has accommodated to human free will, including many morally deficient practices like slavery, yet has devised means to accomplish his divine will via a revelation that eventually would convince mankind to abolish slavery. DT, do you really only want to discuss a proto-Calvinistic God, that overwhelms human freedom? Name the top atheists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that were instrumental in banning slavery.
June 23rd, 2007 at 10:54 am
Did you all see this in the news? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/06/21/australia-prohibits-abori_n_53264.html . Ah, the vagaries of sovereignty trying to help people become moral versus preserving their freedom to choose.
June 23rd, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Ed,
Explain to me how your line of questioning is relevant. Also, I hasten to point out to you that there are numerous decrees (both moral and immoral) in both the Old and New Testaments that no one follows. So there could have been a prohibition against slavery like there is against eating pork, wearing fabric woven of two kinds of threads, &c.
I have made my case why the Holy Bible is atavistic. I also explained that it does not interest me (and that soulster requested that while at this site I do not delve into the subject). The intent of the post was for believers to show arguments why they believe, and for me to demonstrate why these arguments do not work for many nonbelievers. You sent a link to a website I found to be silly, and I explained why, demonstrating that by their logic, either slavery was just or the Christian god did not exist.
If you don’t wish to conceive a way the supernatural can interact with the natural world or talk about the classical proofs for the existence of a god, I suppose you may answer my question earlier posed. Either (1) the most important supposition of many Christians is flat-out wrong or (2) slavery is just.
(3) Or we can drop this line of conversation.
June 25th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Ed-
“Infidel: How do you suppose those 3 Portugeuse kids knew there would be a UFO sighting that day? Or do you prefer to ignore the evidence?”
From the article I read at answers.com these kids did not predict the UFO sighting, only that Mary would appear to them on the 13th (of every month for 5 months) with more instructions, but they were the only ones who actually saw this vision of her. The newspaper account sited in the article do not mention a vision of Mary either, only the ‘light show.’ Also, from this same article I gathered the kids were as astonished as the rest of the crowd when the UFO appeared and danced around. If this information is not correct, I’d be glad to read a link you provide to the contrary. BTW, just last week I had my yearly brain and carotid scan and no brain tumor was found.
June 26th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
“Name the top atheists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that were instrumental in banning slavery.”
First and foremost, Abraham Lincoln.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Ed,
That request confused me to a great extent. I cannot think of any public atheist before the twentieth century (that is, besides some private philosphers). For many deists or pantheists — Hume, Spinoza, Darwin, Einstein, Adam Smith, Bentham, Benjamin Franklin (and other Founding Fathers), Thomas Paine — we cannot know what they actually believed.
I don’t look to them as part of a ‘grand history of atheism’; perhaps, if they were allowed more freedom to speak (one thinks of Spinoza’s excommunication for example), I would. The fact that we cannot list atheists is a mark not against atheism, but against the prevailing culture at large.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
There were plenty of atheists around in the past. The correspondence of Adams and Jefferson in “Ye will say I am no Christian” mentions some contemporary atheists by name. The following link relates to other colonial Founding Fathers like Washington and others in their writings about the influence of atheists in their time: http://home.aol.com/TestOath/27consensus.htm . My view of many of the people you’ve mentioned is that they had highly developed belief systems, shunning traditional religion but also not adopting atheism. I would say that of Lincoln as well.
My point is that slavery was tolerated in the Bible, but the seeds of its demise were planted by the gospel message, taking the influence of much time to bring about the nearly universal recognition of its evil today. Racism is similar. It was not some philosophy generated out of atheism that primarily brought about those changes. But, there were atheists around in those days who could have made that their banner. If they did, no one remembers. So, I don’t find your argument about the gospel being pro-slavery as being of any merit. It seems more of a way to generate heat than light.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Ed,
I fail to see how an allowance (and at times support) of slavery is identical to a ’seed’ that brought down slavery. Perhaps there is, but I cannot see it. Care to explain further?
Instead, I look to a far more recent change these past few centuries towards liberalism and equality; it doesn’t matter if it was a Christian or an atheist that stood against slavery — my last post was partly about this disregard to belief; their belief (or lack of belief) has nothing to do with the content of the Bible, which happens to condone slavery, genocide (Exodus 34: 11-14, Leviticus 26: 7-9), and gives horrible reasons to murder people (Deuteronomy 17:12, Deuteronomy 13:13-19, Deuteronomy 13:7-12, 2 Chronicles 15:12-13, Romans 1:24-32, Exodus 22:17, Exodus 22:19, Exodus 31:12-15, Exodus 21:15, Proverbs 20:20, Leviticus 20:27, Leviticus 20:10, Leviticus 24:10-16, &c.).
Pick up your Bible and read for yourself; I know I did.
The Bible is also a engaging document that at times provides good moral stories; but you must recognize that the Bible’s message cannot be fully moral if slavery, genocide and murder are to be immoral as well.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:45 am
I don’t see where trying to have a Bible study on this forum is going anywhere. I strongly prefer Bible study with people face to face in discussion. Let me point out that only one of your references is to a passage in the NT that is mostly referring to the history of the OT laws. Also, let me also point out that Jesus said that looking at a person lustfully was just as sinful as committing adultery, making Victoria’s Secret catalog gawking a capital offence for the literal minded. So, I think your interpretations are way too oversimplified.
The Bible is hardly for the Pollyanna’s among us. If you want sex, violence, lust, passion, hatred, gore, war, and fratricide to be included in the human story, and not glossed over, then the Bible is for you. It is a message of hope that the savage beast I am doesn’t have to stay brutal, but can evolve into a better kind of man, more in keeping with the Creator’s ways.
My suggestion is to do as I have done. Join a small group Bible study and hash it out over the years with other curious people. I’ve been at it for 26 years now, and I think I’ve still a lot to learn. Maybe then you’ll be able to put a dent in that inferiority complex about not being a theologian.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Your humor (if it is humor) is lost to me. We’ve gone on a mad tangent; care to get back on track with something new?
June 28th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I think the mad tangent started when someone decided to speak against the concept of the Bible as being a source for absolute moral laws.
So, are there absolute moral laws? How do we know them as opposed to silly rules about jaywalking? Is there a source for them? Is that source trancendent, that is, universal and eternal? Does this trancendent source prove God exists?
June 28th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Ed,
If there are absolute laws, as many people believe there are, they are not to be found in the Holy Bible. Ergo, my earlier argument still stands; the link you sent us doesn’t provide a good argument; do you have any others?
I’ll gladly explain why the argument does not work for many nonbelievers; you, on the other hand, can explain how the argument works for many believers.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
So, the absolute moral laws can be found elsewhere? Show me. Ooooo.. the anticipation!
June 28th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Ed,
Perhaps — and I admit that this is a possibility — absolute moral laws are to be found through a deistic god that set into motion the universe through a First Cause, knowing (in whatever sense a god could know) very well that humans were to be a product of its creation. While unscientific, it is logically possible for an evolved systems of kin selectioin and altruism to be the result of a deistic lawgiver. This seems to be what many of the Founding Fathers and other deists believed.
However, there is no evidence for this being. So, there are other systems besides yours that appeal to an absolute moral law.
…Or we just follow John Rawls.
June 28th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
So, how do you account for absolute moral laws apart from a deistic God? Does the naturalistic philosophy you subscribe to have a mechanism, and if so, how do you know what those laws are, and what are some of them, for instance?
Is that why Antony Flew changed his mind about being an atheist?
June 28th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Ed,
No, he changed his mind because he couldn’t answer the First Cause problem, and was told some improper information from a ID creationist. Afterwards, when he learned this, he did not recant, and instead remained a deist because it put his mind at ease.
For absolute moral laws: what do you mean by ‘absolute moral laws’? Remember: divine command theory doesn’t supply ‘absolute moral laws’ for humans to follow; if you cannot see why, I’ll explain.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Absolute moral law would be defined as the correctness of such a choice made by a moral being. A moral being is one who understands moral choices. Do you have a different understanding than that?
So, how do you account for absolute moral laws apart from a deistic or other God? Does naturalistic philosophy have a mechanism by which these laws can be ascertained? Can you give me any examples of these laws?
By the way, a belief in deism is far closer to my theism than your atheism. Deists are one convincing miracle away from theism. And they are far more open to accepting that such a miracle could happen.
June 29th, 2007 at 10:18 am
Ed,
Read John Rawls; it’s ethics, my dear — ethics. Where religion ends philosphy begins.
If a god cannot supply absolute moral laws — if supernaturalism cannot show a way to true morality, then I’m afraid you’re looking to (as Daniel Dennett put it) to a ’sky hook’ and not a ‘crane’. One can be built from the bottom up; the other is a fantastic wish. Please demonstrate to me that it’s even feasable for religion to provide what you’re asking for.
And on deism? I’m afraid that most deists I know think of their god as not part of this universe.
June 29th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I’m not sure who has a fantastic wish. I’ll give you and Dr. Rawls a “primorial position”: I’m the chief of a band of hunters that has been wiping out all the megafauna in our region. I discover a new way of throwing spears, an atlatl. So, do I minimax with my neighboring tribes, or do I kill their leaders, take their women and children as slaves and expand my territory? What does the record show?
I’m afraid Dr. Rawls’ theories just don’t fit with anthropology and natural selection. We’ve needed a crane to lift us from the will to power. That is my point about the seeming lack of legions of atheist philosophers bringing about the end of slavery. It is also why theism, especially Christianity, is the best alternative to the will to power. I will be curious to look down from glory in a thousand years, and see my decendents as they grapple with moral choices. Will they be adapting a more developed Rawlsian philosophy or studying their Bibles? God willing, they won’t be living in some Neitzsche-derived futuristic brave new world, unless, of course, they are alphas. That is one nice thing about an afterlife, it really does satisfy one’s unfinished business. Including justice.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Ed,
That is the most absurd thing I have read in a long time. Where should I begin? I think this is a start:
Look to Raplh Waldo Emerson, William Lyold Garrison, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill: all atheists in the colloquial sense of the 19th century that campaigned against slavery in Britain and America.
I’ll take a page out of Hitchens’ book: is there a moral act that a believer can commit that a nonbeliever cannot? Both atheists and believers worked to end slavery; believers and atheists can be both moral and immoral; we are fully equal, and belief in a god does not automatically make you better than I, nor does my nonbelief necessarily make me better than you. But humor me for a minute. Can you name any atheists that were in favor of slavery? There were millions of Christians that were, and were so committed they went to war to keep their slaves. If you can’t name any atheists that were in favor of slavery, then there obviously weren’t any atheists in favor of slavery. I mean, that’s the crux of your argument. You can’t have it both ways.
June 29th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Garrison an atheist? See http://www.garrison-martineau.com/ . Emerson? http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/onaddress.html
June 29th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Garrison was a deist; Emerson was a Unitarian minister that turned into an atheist [his words are halfway down the page].
Will you address the argument I make?
June 29th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Not sure about Emerson going all the way to atheism, but can’t comment on John Rawls until I can pick up his two books I put on hold at my library. So, next week while I’m studying him on my vacation, you can start on your small group bible study. I suggest your local Friends (Quaker) church, since they have a nice anti-slavery history and are good for people that love peace and quiet.
June 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Ed,
I’ve been to a few Quaker meetings in my day. If I were to join a church, they’d be it. That, or UUism. The joke that always comes about with a UU friend of mine goes:
‘So, how was your prayer meeting?’
‘Good, good…’
‘You didn’t light a candle again, did you?’
‘Um… yes.’
I’ve got a long .pdf of John Rawls if you’d like; it’s Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy. If you’re to read one of his books, I hope you checked out ‘A Theory of Justice’. It’s his best work. I hope you have a good vacation. We can be a bit heated at times, but I wish you the best. If you don’t mind me asking, where to?
June 29th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
We do what we do because we do. And you may quote me on that.
The pattern throughout history repeats itself.
That is, humans throughout history have attempted to give their thoughts and actions more authority than the next person’s, the next tribe’s, the next nation’s.
So some claim that there is a powerful mysterious force outside of themselves and all living things which is acting upon them and others.
They claim to know not only of the existence of said ultimate authority but specifically what this authority wants them and everyone else to do.
This ultimate authority apparently either condones or disapproves of our thoughts, our actions and our deeds.
Historically, those who have claimed such knowledge have made themselves powerful politically, socially and economically in the process. Power rests on the belief in strictly observed hierarchies whose rules are “written in stone.”
A god concept makes the human constructed hierarchy complete.
Afterall, even the most powerful human leader can be usurped, so his position is made more secure if he claims the approval of an ultimate absolute power.
It creates an ultimate authority where there is none.
It demands acquiescence and obedience when there is no master.
It enslaves people’s minds whilst they rattle the cage of their self-imposed prison.
Eventually, people like these demand that ALL share the prison cell with them.
I hear the chant of “worship the leader” in the distance.
(Just my thoughts on the matter, no supernatural opinion included.)
June 30th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
Everything is based on perspective…it seems to me anyways. I am yet to find choice, reason, and belief be seperated effectively…it’s not possible. So even if people do what they do because they do - they have to base that on something (reasoning requires a belief/choice they hold). But I do think constructive talk about issues is a very cool idea and we could use more of it in society.
June 30th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Agreed.